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We are all too familiar with the tobacco industry's marketing strategies and lawsuits filed against Big Tobacco. But many of the same lawyers from these cases have taken on a new fight: lawsuits against Big Food. According to the lawyers of these recent cases, various food companies are making misleading claims and are violating federal regulations with the ways they label their products and ingredients. These lawsuits involve companies like ConAgra Foods, PepsiCo, Heinz, Chobani, and General Mills.

Stephanie Strom of The New York Times reports that a judge dismissed a case in 2009 against Pepsico, claiming that “a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that [Cap'n Crunch's Crunchberries] contained a fruit that does not exist." Lawyers in current cases are investigating the use of the subjective terms “healthy” and “natural,” and Strom explains that unlike the term “organic," these claims can not be federally regulated. While some of the lawyers in the current cases laugh about the Cap'n Crunch case, they find more serious problems with the labels on products targeted at adults, such as yogurt and cooking spray.